I understand what you're saying PT. Lately I've been trying to learn how to control my dreams, as in lucid dreaming, by meditation, with binaural
beats, etc......with little success. I always seem to have dreams when I try, but they're rarely vivid and the majority of the time I'm barely in
control. By posting this thread you've made me realize the reason behind my attempts at lucid dreaming...

I wish to dream the life that I can't live!

Maybe it's fear, my aspirations of change, or just too much time on ATS, but most of the dreams I try to initiate seem to turn into SHTF
scenarios.
One of my dreams started with me working during a horrible storm, and people suddenly began fleeing in fear something. Many people were in the store,
none of whom I knew (one that stood out in my dream was a young woman carrying an infant), but I took charge of the situation and told them to follow
me to my house where I had supplies, food, and weapons. I remember walking for hours through flooded fields and when we finally got there, I was
unable to open my doors because by then the water was up to our chests. In complete despair, I awoke from my dream.
In another dream, it was a bad storm...My brother and I were fleeing in my car. We were in a poor community when we stopped and I grabbed my rifle and
bag out of my trunk. Suddenly a black helicopter came into view, and as I pulled up my sights I awoke.
One more I remember is of myself walking home from work, and I look into the sky to see the planet Saturn coming closer and closer to Earth. Right
afterwards, black helicopters flew in dropping ropes, soldiers sliding down them....What sounded like a voice through a megaphone said, "STAY CALM!
YOU WILL BE TRANSPORTED TO AN UNDERGROUND FACILITY IMMEDIATELY WHERE YOU WILL BE SAFE!" This was probably one of the longest and most vivid dreams
I've ever had, and when I told my coworker, she informed me about Project Bluebeam. Needless to say that scared the crap out of me!

Maybe it's there simply to allow us not to go crazy and be able to let loose one in a while. I've been in beautiful places on this planet
(mountains, sea, beaches, etc...) but a lot of people don't have that chance. A lot of them are lucky if they get a little food every day. So I
assume that dreams could definitely help someone go thru life.

My basic understanding is that while we are awake, a chemical very similar to '___' begins building in our brains. That this is what gives our dreams
a hallucinegenic quality.

This chemical becomes so powerful at the end of 72 hours without sleep, you are clinically insane.

The longest I have ever gone without sleep is just a little over 60, and the hallucinations were truly incredible. (This was from one of my early
teenage years adventures and I had to endure the better part of three days without food or water in sub freezing temperatures outside while traversing
a distance of about 50 miles on foot).

Towards the end of that journey at one point I sat down on an open flight of stairs outside next to a emergency exit at the outside rear of a
department store. The entire building would move back and forth across the parking lot to where I could look over at where the building was supposed
to be attached to the stairs and just see open blue sky.

I also learned that the longer you go without sleep the more vivid your dreams can become as a result of the chemical buildup in your brain that burns
off at night while you are sleeping.

I also learned that people suffering some forms of sleep apnea fall into a state of sleep so deep, that they are near death, which is why their dreams
are usually nightmares where they are being chased or their life is being threatened, this is your own subconcious evidently trying to alert you to
the danger you are in.

Some people actually stop breathing all together in very deep states of sleep and will wake up with oxygen deprivation headaches when they awake. I
have had that happen to me a few times.

Believe it or not people who suffer these incredible deep states of sleep are usually prescribed sleeping pills because they regulate your state of
sleep to a stage that isn't as deep and the rapid eye movement dreams not as intense.

Yes, yes it is. I have always loved to sleep because of my vivid dreams. I have often woken up wanting to go back to where I was in the dream because
I was still in need or because I was happy. I hate the dreams where you die though since they're painful. I like to have lucid dreams though since
you're free to mold your dream scape and explore whatever world you happen to be in. That's just my opinion on it though.

I have experimented with that off and on over the years. Like the movie the Matrix, the dream world doesn't operate on the same rules as our waking
world.

So understanding that is the first big step.

The next thing to overcome is the sensations can be so real in some dreams that the fear factor can become very inhibiting.

I hate the sensation of falling in my dreams, so I was reluctant to let loose and go for flying in my dreams.

Since they are similiar sensations.

Yet once you become accustomed to those sensations and learn to put your fears aside that something truly bad could happen to you in your dreams, then
it really becomes a matter of will, and making that concious determination to do this or do that.

In a lot of ways it boils down to whether you want to be the captain of the ship, conjuring up what you want to do and see experience as you go along,
or whether you would more enjoy a roller coaster type ride where you never know what's going to come up next.

One of the things you might want to try experimenting with, if you are having a longer dream that takes you from one room or place to another, at some
point say to yourself, I want to go back to that room, or see that person, or do that thing, and then attempt to do it the same way you would in real
life.

Practice leads to confidence and the more confident you feel the easier it then becomes to be the master in your dreams and of your dreams if you want
to experience them from that point of view.

It could have been written by myself,except I do not dream anymore or at least I do not remember them if I do.

I too am at a stage in my life that traveling is just not worth it.

I am pretty liberal with stars especially on a thread I author, as long as anyone doesn't call me any mean names that aren't really flattering I
will usually star people for participating.

The reason I often do that is kind of for the same reason that this is a somewhat awkward thread for me, as I am not one to usually reveal a lot about
how I feel and what my life is really like.

I am from that Old English old school of thought of play your cards close to the vest, don't wear your emotions on your sleeve and try to keep a
stiff upper lip.

I am pretty comfortable posting a lot of controversial things on a wide range of topics, which are revealing in a way, but I know that everytime
someone posts something here on ATS whether it's a reply or a original post, they are putting themselves out there in kind of a revealing way, and
most people are to some extent or another somewhat insecure, so I find that star a lot of times can really make the difference to someone who isn't
sure if they should be posting or not.

We all know there are a lot of lurkers on ATS, but I think it fair and safe to say, we can all learn something from everyone if you just listen hard
enough and encourage them enough.

Dreams are probably one of the most revealing things about a person that there are, so I sure do appreciate everyone who wants to share something on
the subject.

I, too, find that my dream life is far more interesting than my real life. Sometimes I wake up tired and disoriented as my mind can't adjust quickly
enough from sleep to wakefulness. And I always know the people in my dreams but they are not anyone I know of in real life.

And I wish I was a musician so I can play some of the music my brain conjures up. But it always slips away from me and I can never remember the
notes..

Great minds think alike. I actually played in a band in the early eighties where we did that song as a cover. I was 15 years old playing in a bar band
touring all over the Canada and the U.S. on a altered birth certificate to make it look like I was 19.

So yeah, imagine how much fun that was, and then getting to the point in life where your dreams are more exciting.

Originally posted by juniperberry
I, too, find that my dream life is far more interesting than my real life. Sometimes I wake up tired and disoriented as my mind can't adjust quickly
enough from sleep to wakefulness. And I always know the people in my dreams but they are not anyone I know of in real life.

And I wish I was a musician so I can play some of the music my brain conjures up. But it always slips away from me and I can never remember the
notes..

I have played the drums since I was eight years old, so I am a musician but just a percusionist, but sometimes I have the most incredible musical
dreams, a couple times I was even playing with my all time favorite band Led Zeppelin. What fun that was. It's amazing to think that these all
original songs are actually being conjured up in their entirety just by our brains.

I think one of the things that dreams reveal is our hidden talents and a far greater capacity to achieve and do than we sometimes get the opportunity
or encouragement to pursue in our waking lives.

How do you tell where one drop of water starts and stops in the ocean?

All energy is connected (quantum entanglement), our current "makeup" just doesn't allow for the perception of it.

I honestly think it does, but we are literally programmed from birth on, through societal constructs, like religion, government and the familiar unit
that has already been programed by religion and government to disconnect from a lot of things and to focus on a very narrow world view and shared
reality instead.

I honestly feel like we are held back intentionally for some reason to not develop our inherent wisdoms and knowledge and perceptive abilities to
instead adhere to the ones that society constructs and wants us to focus in on.

I think maybe we are supposed to shed all of our extraneous distraction in reality to get ready for whatever is next. To get down to our core and
empty our cup, so when the paradigm shift alot of people are feeling occurs, we have a empty cup waiting to be filled.

Sorry I am getting to some of the posts in reverse order.

In many ways I think the Christian Concept of the Cross is metaphorical in that we are all dying on the cross, as we cross from one plane of existence
and reality to the next.

At the early stage of life everything often is about attaining, a home, a car, a career, a lover, a spouse, a family, things, and experiences.

At some point though life then starts to become about learning to let go of these things, as our temporal existence teaches us that people and things
come and go.

The latter stages of life then often for many people become about learning to let go, and to accept the losses and heartaches and dissapointments as
well as the loves and victories and accomplishments as being relatively equal, just at opposite ends of the scale, as we learn to accept that nothing
lasts forever and nothing stays the same and we are all or seem to be headed to a death we can not choose the time or manner of, but some kind of fate
beyond our control does.

I can honestly say I really feel probably like a lot of people now, been there done that, might still have the t-shirt in a drawer but I am so ready
and willing in many ways to let all this go for something new and different and hopefully better.

The earth and this existence really more and more to me seems like a prison, and not a very nice one far too often.

I want something different and better, and I think so many of us do, and whether we are subconciously looking for in our dreams what we can't find in
real life is hard to say, or if we are moving to a new dimension and shift.

20 years ago I wouldn't have been ready, I wasn't ready, now I am in so many ways, still a little bit reluctant, hopes and dreams and wishes and
wants die so hard, but I am much more considerate of taking that leap than I ever was in the past.

My personal opinion tho, is that you simply exist in an other dimension when you dream. Your shell is recharging, so your soul (YOU) exists in a
dimension without time and space. Which is why dreams are never truly close to reality. You recognize people and places, but they transform and
you're somewhere else. Then you're in it, then you see yourself. Maybe you say something to someone, and that person will only hear it in a dream 10
years from now...

I am honestly not sure if this isn't the dream, that something here, keeps drawing me back to it, and I keep manifesting all these things over and
over again as a result.

We imagine we don't understand the dream world as well as we do the waking world, but the truth is, we don't seem to understand either very well in
my own humble opinion.

It might turn out our dream life is our eternal life, with these interludes manifest as corporal and sentient beings, being the dreams.

One thing is for sure, it seems like in this world, most things turn out to be the opposite of what's advertised!

I will end on that note.....does anyone find it bizarre that we use the word dream for both the awaken and sleeping ones?

I don't because I know the power of positive visualization is tremendous, it just requires enough desire and enough focus and a whole host of things
become possible.

I often feel that is why the media hits us with so much negativity and the power structure places so many obsticles in our way, because some one else
knows the best way to have their ideal world, is to keep us from creating one of our own that would suplant it.

Can it really be as silly as people in charge wanting to be right? That attitude seems so shortsighted when we evaluate what's at stake. Our
evolution!

Have you ever read any of the "Law of one" transcripts? I have spent much time reading the material and what impresses me is that it is a coherent
work that never contradicts itself. Amateur works are usually all over the place and expose themselves as the fakes they are. Maybe the harvest is
real. I honestly don't know what to believe, the possibilities are all so surreal, but isn't that what a paradigm shift is? We must be ready to
accept the unbelievable. Empty your cup, so to speak.

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